Young, Broke & AWESOME!

Is your toilet paper Republican?

As you may have heard, our country’s political system is totally corrupt and drowning in cash contributions by special and corporate interests.  Or at least that’s what I’ve heard.  Look, I don’t know a lot about politics.  I’m a financial advisor.  Sometimes I get the House of Representatives and Senate confused.  I’ve never understood the process we use to elect politicians, and frankly, I find the term “electoral college” mind boggling.  And I’m a smart girl, but it’s all a lot like football to me.  Lots of starts and stops, the game goes on forever, and I can’t tell who’s winning.

But I do understand money.  And that’s where we have a lot of power.  We each get one vote, sure, but in New York, I feel like it hardly counts to vote democrat.  That’s obviously going to be the result of any political election here, so it’s practically a waste of my time.  

But dollars?  I have like a hundred of those sometimes.  And then my friend has a few hundred and my other friend is kind of rich so he has several thousand, and if we added it all up, we’d have a decent amount of money.  But we’re all pretty self indulgent, so we probably aren’t going to make any political contributions with it, also because as I said, the system is totally corrupt and drowning in special interest cash and the democrat is going to take New York anyway, but here’s the thing:  We all have to buy toilet paper.  

And did you know that Georgia Pacific makes so many brands of toilet paper that their products are in “more than 80 percent of American homes.”  And that Georgia Pacific is a subsidiary of Koch Industries?  And that Koch Industries gives huge contributions to Republican candidates’ parties including Scott Walker, who quickly set out to ruin America by busting unions and then locking himself in his office and refusing to talk to anyone, but then accepted a call from David Koch himself, except that it was actually a Jerky Boy acting like David Koch, and the whole thing was taped and so he looked really, really dumb?  

What if instead of trying to change this messed up system or fighting for transparency, we just stopped buying these companies shit?  Literally and figuratively. I mean at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is sign a petition or go to a rally.  But if I need toilet paper, I’ll find the time to get to Rite Aid.  And what if I just bought a different brand that didn’t do shit with my money that makes me sick?  

I mean I like my Angel Soft toilet paper as much as the next girl, but what I’d really love is a pension.  Or a decent health plan without a $50 copay.  That would be amazing.  And we all have to make a little sacrifice.  But the thing is, if I do it alone, it wouldn’t get noticed.  I’d just be one girl without Angel Soft toilet paper and no one would be the wiser.  

But if lots of people stopped buying it, even if just lots of people in New York, or one borough of New York City stopped buying it, then the people over at Georgia Pacific might notice, and they might pass it on up to Koch Industries, and then they’d have to have meetings around strategy and marketing and losing market share, etc., etc.  And if we stop buying products from shitty, immoral companies, then where will Republicans candidates get their contributions from?  

Exactly…  

It’s a simple protest.  It starts with you.  It starts with your toilet paper.

Georgia Pacific toilet paper brands include:

Other Georgia Pacific products

 What to buy instead?

Try Seventh Generation, who is decidedly not trying to ruin America, supports labeling household products in plain English, produces chlorine-free phosphate-free cleansers, and its paper products are made from 100% recycled materials.

Business Advice from Drug Dealers

This article from Minyanville draws striking parallels between drug dealers and corporate businessmen. I had connected many of these dots myself, when I provided financial advice to recently released ex-offenders at a non-profit catering to that population.  

I was impressed by how savvy those clients were.  I didn’t always know what they had been locked up for, but many of them shared with me that they were involved in the drug trade.  Some of these clients had keen mental math skills and could add numbers faster than I could, regardless of whether or not they had a high school diploma.  One client caught me when I told him the factors that go into calculating your credit score.  I was listing off the percentages each factor represented of the score, and when I finished, he said it didn’t add up to 100.  

Many of them weren’t familiar with the formal banking system, how a bank account worked, etc. because they kept their profits outside of the system, but they knew and understood business.  After seeing so many young men involved in the drug business come through my doors to see me, I did start to see them as this article puts it: “an independent distributor working for a global conglomerate reaping billions of dollars a year.”  These were business men - often personable, knowledgable and smart -that were on the wrong side of the law, and the main difference between them and some employees at big banks was that these men actually went to jail for their crimes.

The turnover at that organization was fast and I rarely saw the same client twice.  They had similar stories, were all very optimistic that they were out, seemed determined to do things right this time, were out there applying for jobs.  I always wished them the best, but would often wonder if they would really fare well on the other side of the law.  They were used to making money, setting their own schedules, a certain level of respect or at least fear.  And here they were applying for entry-level jobs in a recession with no relevant work experience, usually no high school diploma, and a criminal record.  

This article makes some of the points I often thought about and draws parallels between the drug trade and any corporate business model.  I saw so many clients come and go, they all started to seem the same.  Every week a new group of 100 or so came on and by the next week another 100 had replaced them.  I got a glimpse into the vastness of the drug industry.  But any good businessman can explain the connection between supply and demand.  So, while the number of people it employs was alarming to me, that just represents a fraction of the customer base.